The music is not in the notes, but in the silence between.
—WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART
It was after dinner by the time Callie got back to Pride’s Crossing. The harbor was fogged in, the horns wailing mournfully from across the water. In the driveway of Pride’s Heart, she ran into Marta wearing a trench coat and leather gloves and carrying a manila envelope.
It had stopped raining, but the ground was still slippery. Callie’s foot slid on the wet gravel just as she reached the landing.
“Whoa,” Marta said, reaching out. “Need some help?”
“I’m good,” Callie said, rebalancing the huge quartz bowl she was carrying.
“Where is everyone? Where’s Darren?” Marta asked her.
“It’s his day off,” Callie said. Emily had told her that when she gave her the key. “I don’t know where Emily and Finn are, though.”
“Let me at least get the door for you,” Marta said, taking the key from Callie and opening the huge wooden door.
The sound of their footsteps echoed as they stepped inside, the bowl picking up the vibration. Callie put the bowl down on the stone floor, and the echo reverberated through the hall.
“That’s wild,” Marta said. “Is it alive?”
Callie laughed. “I sometimes think it might be.”
“I saw more of them in the car. I’d be glad to help bring them in.”
“Thank you,” Callie said, “but Paul’s on his way.”
“Oh,” Marta said, smiling. “I heard you and Paul were an item.”
“We’re not an item.” Callie laughed. “We’re friends.”
“Okay,” Marta said, clearly not buying it. “Well, anyway, welcome to the neighborhood.”
“Thank you,” Callie said, not quite knowing what to do next. Without Emily here, she wasn’t really sure what the parameters were. “I need a glass of water.”
“I’ll get you one. Hildy’s not here today, but I know where everything is,” Marta said, leading her into the kitchen and getting a glass from the pantry.
“Bottled or tap?” Marta asked.
“Either,” Callie said.
Marta went to the refrigerator and pulled out two bottles. “Plain or bubbly?”
“Such luxury,” Callie said.
“Nothing but luxury here,” Marta said, motioning Callie to the kitchen table, then taking a seat across from her, co-opting an old Arlo Guthrie tune and customizing it, singing….“You can get anything you want at Emily’s restaurant.”
Callie laughed, knowing the tune. “Excepting Emily.”
Marta smiled. “Oh, you’ve picked the right house to move into,” she said, her voice concealing a bit of an edge.
The door to the butler’s pantry opened, and Paul came in. “How’d it go with the nuns?” he said. Then, realizing Callie wasn’t alone, “Oh, Marta.” His tone was neither welcoming nor surprised.
“I have some pledge papers for Finn,” she said, standing up and preparing to leave. “Will one of you make sure he gets them?”
“Sure,” Paul said, taking the envelope. “I’ll put this on his desk.”
They were on their third trip carrying in the bowls when Paul asked her again. “So what happened with Sister Agony?” He was dressed to help, casual with worn jeans and a blue sweater that matched his eyes. Alice blue, that’s what Rose would have called the color. Azure, Callie thought. The color of the ocean—though not today. Today the grey sky and ocean had been a moody watercolor wash, and the air tasted of salt.
She gave him a withering look.
“That well, huh?”
“She didn’t answer my question, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“What did she say?”
“She claimed they didn’t tell me about Rose to protect me, that they wanted to put distance between me and what happened. Evidently, the police questioned me so much I couldn’t sleep, or, if I did, I had terrible nightmares.”
“Which is well established,” he said.
“Agony said they planned to tell me Rose was alive, but then she became a murder suspect, and they didn’t want me to ‘reexperience the trauma.’?”
“It sounds logical, Callie,” Paul admitted. “If ill-advised.”
“It does. But I don’t think it’s the whole story.”
Paul waited for her to continue, but she didn’t. “Let’s talk about something else,” she said, looking at the bowl he was still holding. “Don’t you want to put that down?”
“Not yet. I want to show you something first.”
“Seriously?” she said, feigning horror. “I remember the last time you said that.”
“Don’t worry. This one is my idea, not Ann’s.”
She hated hearing him say Ann’s name.
“We’re not leaving the house. This has to do with your bowls.” He led her into the library.
Tonight, the room was dark. With the staff gone, there was no fire burning in the massive fireplace. Paul turned on a table lamp, then walked to the far wall and pressed the button that turned the bookcase inward ninety degrees, revealing the hidden bar and the elevator leading down to the wine cellar, the one his father had been boasting about on Thanksgiving Day. Paul put down the bowl, opened the iron grate, and held it for her. “After you.” She got in. He picked up the bowl again. “You have something to play this with?”
Callie reached into her pocket and pulled out a rubber wand. Now she was intrigued.
The elevator clanged loudly as it descended. They traveled past three levels of wooden racks filled with dusty bottles. At the first landing, Callie saw a corridor cut into the granite, leading to more racks. The air cooled as they descended. On the second level, another corridor led to a dark hallway with a huge wooden door at its end. At the bottom level, the elevator slowed to a grinding halt. Paul slid back the iron grate, then shoved open a thick glass door, securing it to brass cleats on the wall.
“Wait here,” he said. A moment later, the space was bathed in soft light, illuminating the pink granite walls and floor of a huge room, about forty feet in diameter and almost perfectly round. There were no wine racks, no furniture at all except for an old couch against the wall, on which Paul carefully placed the bowl. At the far end appeared to be some sort of water feature. The faint musky smell of salt water and ambergris perfumed the air.
“This is a cave,” Callie said, realizing what she was looking at.
“We call it the spa. It’s where the bootleggers in our family used to store their hooch when it came down from Canada, before the house was built. It’s too damp in this room for the wines, too close to the ocean. Hence the glass door,” he said, pointing to the elevator. “If we didn’t have that, the salt air would corrode the mechanics.”